Can anyone recommend a good SMS gateway for PHP?

Question

I'm looking for an SMS gateway that has the following criteria:

• Supports sending from short codes
• Opt-in capabilities for end-user (will require user to opt in before sending message)
• Has a clean API, preferably an XML/ REST API, although SOAP is fine
• The cheaper the better

Honestly, I keep searching and searching all permutations of "SMS Gateway API" etc... on Google and I can't find any great services that can support all of these criteria. There are a lot of really SEO optimized sites and I can't tell which of them are legit. I'm looking for something that will be easy and quick to implement, and none of my colleagues have any recommendations. What APIs have you used (preferably with PHP) that have gotten this job done? Which services have been the most pleasant to deal with, both technically and support-wise?

Update: Will be sending primarily (probably solely) in the US.

Answer 1

I've used Clickatell at a previous job, and it all seemed to work pretty well.

They provided a PHP class for their API, and it all seemed to work pretty well.

I can't say how good they are compared with anyone else, as I've not used any other services. All I can say is that they are legit, and they provided a service that worked for us.

They're based in South Africa, but their service covers the world (we were in the UK, and their location had no effect on us).

Hope that helps.

Answer 2

(I work for Twilio)

Twilio meets your requirements, with the following caveats:

• We support short codes with the same simple API http://www.twilio.com/sms/short-codes
• Opt-in and opt-out capabilities are left up to your application logic
• We have the cleanest API of any gateway I've used (I was in a similar situation as you prior to working here so I have a lot of experience working with many different providers).
• Our prices for long-code SMS start at $1/month for the phone number and $.01/message. Complete pricing is posted on the site http://www.twilio.com/pricing/
• We have a PHP helper library that makes integration easy

Answer 3

There are many SMS services that will allow you to set the originator to your Google number. If you are planning to send to the US, then this is different because the US carriers require to certify the originators (in most cases) so the end user can also opt out, request information about the service, etc, but if you are planning to send SMS to other countries in the world then you will be able to do it for most of them if you use an SMS API service that supports dynamic sender ID.

(Disclaimer: I work for Nexmo).

Nexmo is an SMS API that allows you to send with a dynamic sender ID or originator. This means that you will be able to set the sender ID to be your Google number.

There can be exceptions where certain countries/operators introduce filters, for example for alphanumeric originators, and in that case the operator in particular would not accept messages with this type of sender, however, these are introduced in a relatively small number of countries. Normally there are no problems at all with international numbers as the originator of the message.

Nexmo API uses RESTful protocol and responses can be formatted in XML or JSON. It is very simple to integrate to the API. I recommend that you check the website out for the documentation and the reach.

http://nexmo.com

I hope this helps. Let me know if I can help with any other question.